The Egyptian government shut down most of its country's internet not by phoning ISPs one at a time, but by simply throwing a switch in a crucial data center in Cairo.
That according to a February presentation to the Department of Homeland Security's Infosec Technology Transition Council, obtained by Wired.com.
The presentation -- made by Bill Woodcock, research director of the Packet Clearing House -- argues that the Egyptian Communications Ministry acted quite responsibly in the procedure it used to cut ties from the net, after the shutdown was ordered by Egypt's much-feared intelligence service.
"Most of the outage was effected through a breaker flipped in the Ramses exchange, and the rest was phone calls and arm-twisting," the presentation says. 'Ramses exchange' refers to a central building in Cairo where Egyptian ISPs meet to trade traffic and connect outside of the country, a facility known as an Internet Exchange Point.
The report's timeline also contradicts many observers' guesses that a smaller internet provider called Noor escaped the initial shutdown because it provided connectivity to Egypt's stock market and several government agencies. According to the presentation, Noor seems to have been hunted down by the intelligence service, just like many other small Egyptian ISPs.
Woodcock, an expert on internet security and infrastructure -- especially connection hubs in developing countries -- did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the document. confirmed the document's veracity, but pointed out that the facts remain scant. What he does know is that his company's monitoring equipment was shut off, as was equipment from other companies; that the intelligence service did call some ISPs; and that the shutdown didn't involve manipulation of BGP, a routing protocol, as many had originally assumed.
Most media, including Wired.com, reported that government officials contacted individual ISPs and told them to shut down their networks, under threat of losing their communications licenses.
But the document (embedded below) contradicts that narrative, providing new details on the outage -- largely laying the blame on Egypt's internal security service, while describing the "flip-the-switch" shutdown as a "politically liberal" choice by the Egyptian communications ministry.
That's because turning off the internet at the center exchange made it very easy to switch it back on, prevented surveillance, made it clear to everyone what had happened, and prevented spyware from being placed on the networks.
Compare that to Tunisia, where Facebook login pages were manipulated -- presumably by the government -- to grab the passwords of Tunisian activists in order to delete their accounts and protest pages.
The presentation suggests the weeklong shutdown had severe effects on Egypt's economy, in the short term from loss of commerce, and in the long term from a likely plummet in tourism, and an exodus of call centers from Egypt.
The presentation concludes that the ministry's course of action in obeying the orders may have some positive effects in the future: "Itʼs unlikely that Egyptʼs communications ministry will ever be asked to flip that switch again."
Here's the timeline in the report (verbatim):
Update: this story was updated at 1:40 PM Pacific with confirmation and information from Bill Woodcock.
A full and more updated version (pdf.) of this presentation is now available on Packet Clearing House's website.
Illustration: Screenshot from a presentation to a DHS internet committee on Egypt's January 2011 internet shutdown
See Also:- Wired.com's Coverage of the Revolt in Egypt
